Effervescent and appealing despite some missteps.
When a man is named guardian of his best friend’s daughter, he’s expecting a child, not a gorgeous young woman who’s ready to take life by the horns and who’ll challenge every attempt to keep her staid and respectable.
Englishman Jonathan Deverill didn’t even know his American business partner had a daughter, so it comes as a surprise when he names Jonathan the girl’s guardian. He’s even more stunned to discover that the girl he’s visiting at New York’s Forsyte Academy is actually a beautiful young woman who’s been waiting her whole life for her father to take her away to live a life beyond the school. The fact that he never did, despite a lifetime of promises, makes Marjorie McGann angry and hurt, feelings exacerbated when she learns he’s died without ever visiting her, much less ushering her away from her boring, sheltered life. Marjorie is restless, ready to use her hefty inheritance to live an interesting life, get married, and have children. Jonathan infuriates her by telling her he needs to leave her at the school for a few more months while he gets some business settled and prepares a place for her with his family in London. Not interested in waiting one more day, she buys herself a cabin on his ship to England. So begins a battle of wills between two people who are fighting their attraction to each other while trying to do what’s best for themselves and each other, knowing their goals are far too different for them to be together. Or are they? Guhrke continues the Deverill family saga with Jonathan’s story, which is fun and engaging, though the author does her characters some disservice. At times, Marjorie and Jonathan both furiously resist things that make perfect sense and overemphasize conflict which feels easily solved.
Effervescent and appealing despite some missteps.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-285371-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An effective infomercial—and guest-room sleep-aid—for Inn BoonsBoro.
In Roberts’ new series launch, the conversion of a tumbledown Maryland hotel into a boutique country inn fails to expel an extremely shy resident ghost.
The first half of the novel, essentially an extended prologue, is painstakingly slow. As Roberts demonstrates a newfound passion for construction minutia (perhaps because she renovated and owns Inn Boonsboro in real life), the activities of architect Beckett Montgomery and his two builder brothers as they retrofit a historic building in Boonsboro (near the Antietam battlefield) unfold almost in real time. Working under the supervision of their benevolent tyrant of a mother, the brothers exchange good-natured macho gibes as they appoint the Inn-to-be with the most opulent tile, woodwork and fixtures. Amid all the bromance, Beckett watches longingly as his crush since grade school, Clare, goes about running her amazingly profitable independent bookstore while raising three unruly boys alone. (Her soldier husband died in Iraq.) Does she or doesn’t she notice him, Beckett muses ad infinitum. Meanwhile, Clare tells herself that Beckett is not really interested, just being kind to a war widow. Once this minor miscommunication is cleared up, the two begin a tentative relationship, however, the necessity of introducing obstacles to true love has Roberts stretching for things for them to squabble about, including the sighting by Clare’s youngest son of a ghostly lady dressed in an old-timey long gown, staring from an upper story window of the Inn. (The ghost, nicknamed “Lizzy,” has betrayed her presence to Beckett and a few others only with a scent of honeysuckle and a penchant for opening doors.) Cartoonish villain Sam, the spoiled, indolent son of the area’s wealthiest family, stalks Clare and tries to take indecent liberties, but his belated appearance, and his failure to pose a believable threat, do little to propel the plot. The fictional doppelganger of Boonsboro is an anachronistic bubble, seemingly untouched by the blight besetting so many American small towns.
An effective infomercial—and guest-room sleep-aid—for Inn BoonsBoro.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-425-24321-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Reid’s tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a...
An unhappily married couple spends a year apart in Reid’s (Forever, Interrupted, 2013) novel about second chances.
When we meet Lauren, she and her husband, Ryan, are having a meltdown trying to find their car in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium after a game. Through a series of flashbacks, Lauren reveals how the two of them went from being inseparable to being insufferable in each other’s eyes—and in desperate need of a break. Both their courtship and their fights seem so ordinary—they met in college; he doesn’t like Greek food—that the most heartbreaking part of their pending separation is deciding who will get custody of their good-natured dog. It’s not until Ryan moves out that the juicy details emerge. Lauren surreptitiously logs into his email one day, in a fit of missing him, and discovers a bunch of emails to her that he had saved but not sent. Liberated by Ryan’s candor, Lauren saves her replies for him to find, and the two of them read each other’s unfiltered thoughts as they go about their separate lives. Neither character holds anything back, which makes the healing process more complex, and more compelling, than simply getting revenge or getting one’s groove back. Meanwhile, as Lauren spends more time with her family and friends, she explores the example set for her by her parents and learns that there are many ways to be happy. It’s never clear until the final pages whether living alone will bring Lauren and Ryan back together or force them apart forever. But when the year is up, the resolution is neither sappy nor cynical; it’s arrived at after an honest assessment of what each partner can’t live with and can’t live without.
Reid’s tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a committed relationship.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1284-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
